After firing its head patent attorney, Steven Trzaska, L’Oreal is now under fire from Trzaska in New Jersey federal court. On April 16, 2015, Trzaska sued L’Oreal, claiming that his firing violated New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (“CEPA”).

In his complaint (available at Law360), Trzaska alleges that L’Oreal had a quota for its New Jersey office of 40 filed patent applications in 2014. But, Trzaska contends, an outside consultant had previously found that many of L’Oreal’s patent applications were purely cosmetic, saying that “the vast majority of its inventions were of low or poor quality.” Trzaska alleges that his superiors pressured him to file applications to meet the quota. However, he told them that “neither he nor the patent attorneys who reported to him were willing to file patent applications that the attorneys believed were not patentable.” Soon after, L’Oreal terminated him, saying that it was hiring a new “head of patents of the Americas.” Trzaska claims that this explanation was pretext and that the company in fact fired him because he refused to file applications that were not patentable.

Companies buy directors & officers (“D&O”) insurance policies with the intention of providing protection for key individuals in a corporate structure. The recent decision BioChemics, Inc. v. AXIS Reinsurance Co., from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, illustrates the importance of the terms of the policy in determining what is covered, what is not, and when you should notify the insurer of a potential claim.

As we’ve previously discussed, an insurance policy can provide more reliable protection for the indemnification rights of the directors and officers in times of financial distress, because corporations plagued by regulatory or other legal problems frequently suffer financial setbacks. However, when a corporation is the subject of an official investigation, determining exactly what constitutes the start of a covered “claim” may be a matter of some delicacy. Read More ›

Ellen Pao may not have won her gender discrimination case against Kleiner Perkins, but she may have inspired numerous women working in Silicon Valley who identified with her cause. According to Fortune, employment lawyers are seeing a heightened awareness among women that the workplace issues they face, and that Ms. Pao articulated in her case, are perhaps more widespread than not. This “Pao Effect” has Kay Lucas, a San Francisco-based employment law attorney, fielding twice as many calls each week from potential clients with workplace gender discrimination concerns. Kelly Dermody, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, has litigated gender discrimination cases for a decade, and told Fortune that her clients now have a heightened willingness to speak out. Lucas also said that companies are more inclined to settle instead of allowing information to become public, and as we observed with the Pao trial, highly publicized. Lucas noted that many of her clients’ complaints share similar themes involving exclusion from important meetings and denied access to the circles of influence. Yet, she said to Fortune, “these women are not particularly angry; they’re ambitious. They’re not victims; they want to be participants.”

A quick search of legal news gives this “Pao Effect” additional credibility. According to Law 360, Heather McCloskey recently sued Paymentwall, Inc. for sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation and failure to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment and discrimination. Ms. McCloskey alleged that executive Benoit Boisset routinely harassed her, calling attention to her physical appearance in a demeaning manner. As she became more vocal in her objections, Boisset used expletives when referring to her, and ultimately terminated her employment. McCloskey also described the workplace environment as young, predominantly male and lacking any formalized set of rules or policies. Kelly Dermody cited these kinds of workplace dynamics as partially to blame for the volume of complaints arising from Silicon Valley. She opined to Fortune that many tech companies take off “really quickly without a lot of attention to human resources.” Consequently, “you have a lot of young managers who make young managers’ mistakes,” which might encompass many of the alleged missteps in the Paymentwall case. Read More ›

Matt Townsend of Bloomberg Business reports that Charney has resumed his arbitration against his former employer, in which he is seeking $40 million from the clothing company. Charney previously agreed to put his claims on hold while American Apparel made its final decision about whether to terminate him. After an investigation, the board decided in December to cut Charney loose. Read More ›

In the previous blog post, we discussed the ongoing bankruptcy litigation between Crystal Cathedral Ministries and its founder Dr. Robert Schuller over the rejection of his Transition Agreement. That contract purported to spell out the relationship between the parties as Dr. Schuller stepped aside from his post as senior pastor. The determination of whether that agreement was intended to be an employment agreement, and subject to the strict limitations of section 502(b)(7), or a retirement benefit which is not so limited, is pending before the Supreme Court. However, Dr. Schuller’s case also presented other interesting issues that could be instructive for other employers.

In addition to his claim for damages based on the rejection of the Transition Agreement, Dr. Schuller sought compensation from tCrystal Cathedral (the bankruptcy debtor) in an undetermined amount, for allegedly improper use of his intellectual property. The intellectual property, which consisted of more than 35 years of books, sermons and other writings, had been produced by Dr. Schuller while he was employed by the debtor as its senior pastor. Dr. Schuller, individually and through a wholly owned corporation, asserted a copyright to these materials. Under the Transition Agreement between the debtor and Dr. Schuller, the intellectual property was made available to the debtor for use pursuant to a royalty free license. Read More ›